Get a good travel insurance (e.g. World Nomads, trusted by Lonely Planet and National Geographic – our review) which covers loss of valuables.

8. Hotel theft

Moscow cityscape

How it works:

During the World Cup in 2018, a Colombian singer, Maluma, had USD $800,000 worth of valuables stolen from his hotel room in Moscow.

Besides Maluma, other tourists have also reported having valuables stolen from their hotel safe.

To understand how hotel thefts work, first , there are a couple of ways a hotel room / apartment can be broken into:

Hacking: electronic locks can be hacked to create a master key card.

Inside job: by hotel staff.

No locking chain / latch: if you are not in the room or if your door does not have one, a simple paper menu can unlock your door.

Next, hotel room safes can be broken into too:

Inside job: all hotels have a way to get into your safe.

Master code: some hotels do not change it. It could be a standard “0000”, found in the user manual in the lock, or even on the Internet! Simple codes such as “1234” are easy game for burglars too.

Master key / master magnetic card: each safe the hotel orders comes with one, so a hotel will probably have hundreds of these. If these are not secured properly, they can used by staff / thieves to steal.

Mike Moske, a private investigator who has worked in hotel security for over 26 years, estimates that 60-70% of hotel thefts are inside jobs.

If that happens, it is difficult to prove that you have been a victim of theft, as there are no signs of forced entry.